


take my body, take my body.

by marquis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, and the "you would be milady" scene maybe possibly got me a bit teary, but i just watched the entire television series, i haven't read the books in a few months now, i'm very sorry about how OOC this may be, so i had to write something.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marquis/pseuds/marquis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the girl sleeps, she dreams. And sometimes, when she dreams, she recognizes what she sees.<br/>(Arya at the House of Black and White, living through Nymeria when she sleeps. Horribly cheesy. Sorry not sorry.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	take my body, take my body.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ["All I Want" by Kodaline](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cOCmC_m23E).  
> Written because I have a lot of unresolved Arya/Gendry feels. And maybe writing about them will convince Mel to read the series. Maybe. (Probably not.)

She liked it best when she slept.

Sleeping, she could run free. She was still no one, still nothing, but she wasn’t alone any longer. There was a pack, in her dreams. There was a family for her to run with, who never bossed or bit or told her to behave. The girl with no name could lead them to battle, to hunt, over rivers and through trees. The girl with no name could serve the god of Death, the one she’d prayed to before finding herself across the ocean in a dark place that smelled sickly sweet, like decadence. Like death itself, predicted and calculated and cold. Wanted, but never warm.

Sometimes, she could even see things she recognized. It was a wonderful dream, a terrible escape; she could go where Arya had been at home and see the towers burnt, the stones knocked over and the stables gone. She could see how her home had lost its name, how Winterfell had turned into ruins without a family to take care of it.

Winterfell was just like her, and she could still find solace in that.

There was the godswood and there was where Arya Stark had slept. There was where her brother, Brandon, had fallen. That place was where the sister, Sansa, had read beneath the trees. The trees were dead and scorched now, of course, and even coated with a heavy layer of snow.

Dead. Empty. Forgotten and neglected, ravished by people it once sheltered from the outside world. This was a place that Arya had lived. The girl was Arya no more, but in her dreams, she could remember.

There were other places, as well. Harrenhal, where men chased her away with swords and arrows. Little cottages around the Twins, where mothers shrieked and held their children close as she paced outside their doors.

She could smell their fear and she could understand it. In her dreams, the girl was not human. Sometimes, she wasn’t even human when she was awake. It must be scary to see that, although she had not truly felt fear in quite some time. That was something that Arya knew, something that Arry and Nan and Weasel had known their share of. There was none left for the girl with no name. _No one_ couldn’t feel fear, anyhow.

The Kindly Man still hadn’t figured out her secret. He didn’t know that she could shed her skin for fur, for scales, or for feathers. She had done it while he wasn’t there to watch her, although there was always the chance that he might find her out anyway. The girl with no name had learned to slip in and out of animals just as she was being taught to change her own face, from Beth to that poor beaten girl and back to no one at all. It was possible now to change everything about her in the blink of an eye.

That was never as nice as her dreams.

There was one incident in particular with which waking could never compare. It had been a long night, and she’d been traveling long and far when she came across the inn. A boy was hard at work out front, even so late – or was it early? – in the night, when the sky was dark and he was guided only by the stars and the fire in his forge.

Arya of Winterfell knew this boy. She knew him quite well. It was hard for the girl with no name to ignore that fact, and, given it was a dream, she decided not to. He was quite a lot bigger than he had been last they spoke; she hadn’t thought that was possible, but doubtless he would have thought the same if he saw Arya Stark again after so many years.

The mouth that so often urged her to hunt and feed was open, tongue lolling out. It wasn’t hunger, though; she didn’t know what it was. She had never had the urge to greet someone in her dreams until now. The best she could manage was a whine, high and desperate.

 _It’s me, it’s me! Gendry, it’s me!_ But she was no one now, and when he looked up and saw her, he jumped back in alarm.

“No!” he shouted, picking up a poker that steamed from the flames and holding the orange tip out towards her. “Go on, get away!”

She didn’t want to get away. There was a sort of unfamiliar ache inside of her, one that she hadn’t felt since after the Kindly Man had given her sight back to her. How she was supposed to tell him that she missed him was a mystery; he wouldn’t understand. The wolf she was hadn’t been with Arya Stark when she knew Gendry. They had never known each other.

Pressing her nose close to the ground, the girl wolf crept closer, making sure to tuck in her tongue and close her mouth. The whines came out high and reedy from the back of her throat.

The boy didn’t seem to be any more at ease. “I said get!” he ordered. The girl watched through the wolf’s eyes, and she knew that he was afraid of her. His hand was steady, but she could _feel_ the blood pulsing through his veins, quick and anxious. She could _smell_ his fear.

Her pack would never forgive her for what she was about to do. This was a two-legged beast, one that she could easily tear apart if not for the poker. This was someone that they didn’t know or care about; he was one obstacle in the way of food, the only goal they ever had.

But Arya of Stark was still holding on, somewhere. The girl with no name wanted so desperately for a chance to give in and be that little girl again, to be comforted by a friend that she hadn’t seen in far too long.

So she fell to the ground, rolled over, and bared her neck. Submitted to him, in hopes that he would understand.

“Wha – _what_ ,” he stuttered, poker falling down and sizzling in the grass. She whined again, hoping he would understand. When he didn’t move forward, she rolled over, resting her head on her paws and looking up at him. Humans could be so _daft_ , but at least he’d put the poker down.

She watched and waited, patient and quiet, as he struggled with whatever was going on inside his head. When he finally took a step forward, she felt her tail give a twitch, against her will. He stilled, cautious, but when it happened a second time he grinned, finally relaxing enough to come over and pet at her head. She closed her eyes and let him, fought back the part of her brain that labeled him as meat.

“Alright, then,” he sighed, after another minute or two. “I suppose you can stay.”

And when the girl with no name woke up that morning with tears sliding down her face, she wished that she never would have woken up at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I get the feeling that Gendry and Arya aren't ever going to meet up again in the books, because George R.R. Martin seems to have no problem with neglecting closure. ("I'll answer all of your questions about your mother the next time we speak, Jon," says Ned, and then _they never even see each other again_.) Because that thought makes me horribly depressed, I tend to make myself feel better by imagining that, one day, Gendry meets Nymeria, and she keeps him company until Arya returns to Westeros and she must go to meet her Warg.  
>  If they do meet again, though, it is my dream that Gendry takes his place as rightful heir to the throne and Arya rules by his side as the kickass HBIC that she is. And Sansa helps, because I love her too.  
> (If you guys didn't know that I'm a fan of ASOIAF, you certainly do now. And you should go read it. Please. Unless you already have, in which case we should talk more.)


End file.
